enough to go by
by engmaresh
Summary: The course of unifying an empire never did run smooth. Seven days, seven stories. Written for Baavira Week 2018.
1. how they shine for you

"I can't believe you volunteered to take the first shift," Baatar grumbled as he handed Kuvira her bowl of rice and stew. "You've been leading this whole thing, and now you're still working."

She took the food from him, and stabbed hungrily at a piece of moo-sow. "It's because I'm leading this is why I'm taking the first watch. I can't just drag everyone out here and then do nothing."

"Do nothing?" He threw himself down on the ground next to her and immediately regretted it when it turned out to be much harder than expected. Earthbenders. They always managed to make rock, dirt and metal seem cozy. "You've been the brains and the driving force behind all this! We'd still be talking around in circles back in Zaofu if you hadn't decided it was time to leave."

"You sell yourself short," Kuvira said, looking up from her bowl. A grain of rice stuck to her upper lip, but she licked it off before Baatar could give into the urge to brush it away. "We wouldn't have gotten as much support from the Xins and the Jis if it hadn't been for you. And I'm still amazed you managed to get Sifu Wu and his family to come too."

"We all want to do something." He leaned back on his elbows and tilted his head up to the sky. Stars, a rare sight for him at this time of the night, twinkled down at them, but the moon was hidden behind a cloud. "I still can't believe we're out here, doing this."

Kuvira set aside her bowl and tugged her braid over her shoulder, brushing the tip of it under her chin. Baatar knew her long enough to recognize it as a nervous tick and nudged her gently. "What's wrong?"

"Are we doing the right thing?" she asked lowly, her brow knit with doubt. "I know we have the intel Su received from Raiko, and we've got supplies, but Ba Sing Se is in total chaos. I'm just going to get everyone killed."

Baatar sat up. "Look–" he began, when he was interrupted by a sudden commotion from the camp.

They leapt to their feet, fists at the ready, but it was just Varrick, stumbling out of his tent with a giant plume of smoke billowing after him.

"Everything's under control, relax, just a little bit of a mishap with a steamer. Zhu Li, do the thing!"

His beleaguered assistant crawled out from her own smaller tent, and disappeared into his. After a few moments, the smoking stopped, and the grey cloud surrounding his tent diffused.

Varrick beamed at the circle of disgruntled people around him. "See, nothing to worry about."

"If the bandits discover us, Varrick," Kuvira warned.

"We have guards! We're surrounded by an electrified fence I haven't quite finished testing yet!" Varrick's eyes gleamed in the firelight. "And we have you, Captain. We'll be fine!"

Kuvira's lips thinned, but she didn't say anything else as Varrick crawled back into his tent.

"Now I know you're tired," Baatar said, turning back to her. "You would have chewed him out any other time."

"It's not that," she said, brushing her chin with her braid again. "He's no longer under contract with your mother. If I push him too hard, he might leave. He's Water Tribe, what stake does he have in our fight?"

"He wouldn't leave," said Baatar. "He's too crazy for that."

Kuvira huffed a laugh. "What does that make us?"

"Loyal and dedicated citizens of the Earth Nation. "

Her laughter came a little louder. "I should put you in charge of the propaganda." She drew her hand across the air, as though envisioning a banner. "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's nation."

"Ugh," Baatar made a face. "I wouldn't go that far."

He sat back down and patted the ground next to him. Kuvira joined him, her legs folding under her, graceful as always. Looking away from the circle of their encampment, he could see the faint glow of Varrick's experimental electric fence surrounding them.

Beyond the fence were the airships, and beyond that, nothing but darkness. He shivered, and rubbed his arms.

"You cold?"

"No…" He turned his gaze up to the sky. A gust of wind must have blown the cloud away because the full moon beamed down upon them. "Look," he pointed. "We have Yue's blessing for this."

Kuvira tilted her head back, her eyes following direction of his outstretched arm. "You believe in that?"

"Not really," Baatar admitted. "But sometimes it's nice to think about."

She sighed, leaning back on her elbows, and tipping her head up to the sky. "I haven't seen the stars in so long. It drove me crazy sometimes, to be out at night, and to look up only to see those ridiculous domes. I wonder how anyone can stand it."

"Force of habit."

"Fear and complacency," she said. This morning, before their departure from Zaofu, she'd yelled the words in his mother's face. Now they were sad.

"One day we'll go back and there'll be no more domes," he promised. "Zaofu won't need them anymore."

"Mmm," she murmured absently, her gaze fixed on the night sky. "I think I—look!"

She pointed. Something bright streaked through the darkness.

"A falling star?"

"Yes! And it's fallen in the direction of the Four Advisors! Great opportunities await, they will help you make your case to the Dragon Emperor."

Baatar turned to her. "You believe in that?"

She scowled, but in the bright light of the moon he could see her blush. "It's...when I was very young."

"Oh." He knew she didn't like talking about her past. "You don't have to tell me."

But she drew her legs up to her chest and the words kept coming. "My grandmother, she told fortunes. She'd look at the stars and tell the farmers when to plant the crops, when the best time was to marry, what sky a child was born under and what its future would be."

"And?" Baatar prompted, curious despite himself.

Kuvira shrugged. "I believed it. Sometimes. When they came true. And when they didn't it was just proof that the old beliefs were wrong.

"She died when…I don't know how old I was. It was a particularly harsh winter. I didn't really care after that. But when I was…" Her braid was back in her hand, the tail brushing over her chin and lips like she was hoping to sweep the words back in. "When I was alone, I remembered. She said the snout of the Black Lion Turtle always points west. He is looking for the first Avatar. So I went west until I came to Ba Sing Se. And then Su found me."

Baatar looked up at the sky. It was easier than looking at Kuvira, who trying to casually wipe her sleeve across her face. "Which one's the Black Lion Turtle?"

"It's too early for him. He appears in the fall, once the leaves turn."

He narrowed his eyes at a particularly bright star. "That'll be you one day."

"What?" Her eyes were dry when she looked up at him.

"There." He pointed. "Look at that cluster. That's you, metalbending."

"It doesn't look like anything, Baatar."

"You're not looking at it right." Grabbing her hand, he pointed it at the group of stars. "That's you, see?" He drew outline of a triangle with her finger.

"It's a triangle."

"It's your uniform."

"Right."

"And that–" he traced a wavy line moving away from the triangle. "Those are your metalbending cables."

For a few moments she peered up at the sky with him. Then she snorted, pulling her hand back. "Opal's right. You're such a dork."

"I'm telling you," he said with a grin, "One day they'll be looking up at the sky, and they'll tell stories about Kuvira. She walked the Earth Kingdom and united all the lands."

Kuvira laughed. "I _walked _, huh?"

"It's called artistic license, have you never talked to Huan?"

"And what about you?" She stuck him with her elbow and pointed. "There, that one looks like you!"

"That's a stick!"

Kuvira smirked at him. "Yeah, that's definitely you."

"You know, if I'd wanted abuse, I'd just have stayed back ho—in Zaofu."

Her smirk faded into something softer. "It's okay. It's not going to stop being home right away."

"I know. I wish...that some things worked out differently. But I don't regret this." He looked down at her hand, next to his. Underneath his fingers, dirt, soil, earth. He couldn't hear it hum the way she did, but there were other things he could do, now that he had the freedom to do so.

"We'll make it," he said, smiling back at her. "After all, the stars are in our favor."


	2. these graces that hold me

The patter of bare feet and Baatar's shouted "Amika!" was all the warning Kuvira got. Locking her elbows and tightening her core, she braced herself as fifty pounds of child scrambled onto her back. She winced as a toenail scraped across her bare calf. Time for a trim, it seemed.

"Drop and give me twenty!" her daughter yelled, way to close to Kuvira's ears for her comfort. She settled herself cross legged in the small of Kuvira's back and grabbed onto the straps of her tank top.

"Hold on," Kuvira warned, then lowered herself slowly. One. Two. Three. Her muscles burned. Four. Caught in her daughter's iron grip, the neck of her top was beginning to choke her. Five. Six. Seven. Amika swayed, threatening to upset her balance. Eight. Nine. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Baatar approaching. Ten. Eleven.

"Oh, for the love of—" Amika's weight was lifted from her back. Kuvira inhaled deeply and powered through nine more push-ups before she lowered herself carefully to the floor, pressing her face to the cold tile.

"I think you're getting too old for this," she mumbled at the floor.

"I'm not getting old!" her seven-year-old crowed from somewhere above her head. "_You're _getting old!"

Rolling over onto her back, Kuvira looked up at her husband and daughter. There was a distant look in Baatar's eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He shook himself. "Nothing. Just having flashbacks to that first week when you tortured me."

For a second her blood ran cold, bright purple spirit vine energy filling her mind's eye. She blinked furiously, and then remembered. "That wasn't—that was _training_."

"I was sore for the entire first month!"

"Because you'd never done the tiniest bit of exercise before leaving Zaofu," she retorted. Baatar held out a hand and she let him pull her to her feet, laughing when Amika ran around and gave her a little boost from behind.

"You two are back early," she remarked. "What happened?"

"The test worked, so I decided to make it an early day and sent everyone home." Despite the fact that she was sweaty and probably smelled like a moose-lion, Baatar wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "It's been a while since I got to see you work out."

"Mmmm," she smirked, turning to meet his lips with her own. "You know, you could always join me."

Baatar made a face and shook his head. "I like my soft, cushy life as it is."

"Dad likes being soft and cushy!" Amika piped up, and poked her father hard enough in the gut that he grimaced.

"Please, Kuvira, take your daughter."

"Oh, she's _my _daughter now, is she?" said Kuvira, crouching so that Amika could scramble onto her back, where she clung like a monkey lemur and stuck her tongue out at her father.

"When she spends the whole day poking her nose in my work, breaking my tools—yes you did, yes you did—" he said as Amika chanted "No, no, no," in Kuvira's ear.

"And when she's asking me to make things blow up, then _yes_, she's very much your daughter." Baatar booped his daughter on the nose, then Kuvira, though he followed up the second one with another kiss. "I'm going to take a nap."

He walked off to their bedroom. Kuvira looked over her shoulder. "Did you really break your father's tools?"

"Maaaybe?" said Amika, her face a picture of innocence. "It was an accident. And it was dad's fault for not putting it away properly."

Kuvira pursed her lips. "Did you apologise?"

Amika heaved a deep, exaggerated sigh. "Yes, mom. And then I helped dad fix it." She began to wriggle, and Kuvira slowly crouched down again so she could slide off her back.

"Can I come to work with you next year, mom?"

"Well, my work's not very interesting—"

"But you work with Auntie Korra!" Amika began running around the room, her torso leaning forward while she windmilled her arms. Kuvira wasn't sure if she was pretending to airbend or if she was mimicking one of the new bending forms.

"I don't always work with Korra."

"Then you have to ask her to come! Pleeease!" Amika jumped onto the sofa, but after a pointed look from her mother, jumped right off it again.

Kuvira began unbinding her wrappings from her hands and wrists. "I can't ask the Avatar to come visit just because you want to see her."

Amika skipped over and began wrapping her own wrists with Kuvira's discarded bandages, only to succeed in tangling them together. "But dad called her today, and she's coming tomorrow."

"What?"

"Yep!" said Amika, nodding vigorously. "He called after the spirit vine test succeeded."

Kuvira stormed off to the bedroom, still trailing cloth from her left wrist, her daughter scampering after her like an excited kitten. "Baatar! BAATAR!"

Her husband jackknifed upright as she opened the door, already alert. It was one thing that hadn't changed from their three-year campaign, despite the years that had passed since then. He jammed his glasses back on his face. "What's wrong?"

"You forgot to mention that Korra is coming by tomorrow." Him being in bed gave Kuvira the chance to loom over him for once, and she took full advantage of it, crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders.

But Baatar was used to her intimidation tactics. Assured that they weren't under attack, his shoulders relaxed. "Oh right! Sorry dear, I forgot." He smiled up at her, a little sheepish.

"Is it about the tests?"

"Well, yes," he began, then fell back with an _oomph _as Amika plowed into him. "Sweetie, mom and dad are talking."

"I'll be quiet!" Amika promised. "Just…" she held up her hands, now bound together by the tangled bandage. Baatar sighed and set to picking them apart. Kuvira, meanwhile, gave up on looming, and sat down at her vanity across from the bed.

"Anyway," he began again, "though I've been allowed to resume my work on the spirit vines, I'm supposed to alert the Avatar about any breakthroughs I have. In case, you know, they might be weaponized. Again. By me." He smiled crookedly at her.

Kuvira groaned, dragging her hands through her hair. "You should have told me about that before you called her." Her fingers caught on a snarl, and she began tugging. "I don't have any reports ready, and Governor Chu still hasn't gotten back to me yet about—"

"Kuvira. Kuvira," Baatar got out of bed, gently pulling her hands away from her hair. "Deep breaths."

Kuvira closed her eyes and inhaled. She felt Baatar lean over her, heard him take something from the vanity. Brush bristles ran gently over her hair. "She's here to check on my work, not yours."

A full body shiver ran down her spine and she slumped back against him. "You know Korra, she'll drop by and pester me anyway."

"You mean she'll just commander the kitchen, cook stewed sea prunes, laugh at us as we pretend to enjoy them, spoil our daughter, and ask about how you're doing." She could feel him carefully work over the tangle, brushing it free. "Everything will be fine."

She took another deep breath, exhaling forcefully through her nose. "Yes, you're right."

"You okay, mama?" Small hands crept into her lap and she opened her eyes. Amika's wrists were still wrapped together, now tangled even more since her father's attempt to unbind them.

"Yes, sweetheart," Kuvira assured her, unwrapping the last of her own bandages and dumping them on the vanity. "I'm fine. I just…" she chewed her lip, unsure about how to express to her young daughter the roiling mix of guilt, anger, anxiety, and annoyingly abject gratitude that surged up in her every time the Avatar dropped by on her check-ins.

Luckily Baatar came to her rescue. "Your mother and Korra once had a big fight and your mother still feels bad about it."

"Oh," said Amika, holding up her bound hands. Kuvira began searching for one of the loose ends to untangle her. "Was that when dad built you the giant mecha and you trashed Republic City?"

Kuvira tensed. "Who told you that?"

"Hanak!"

Catching Baatar's eyes in the mirror, Kuvira made a face. Hanak was Korra's eldest, but he reminded her very much of former Commander Bumi, who had overseen her for a year of her sentence. An hour in his presence was as exhausting as a day full of fighting drills.

It was somewhat unfortunate that Amika liked the boy so much. "And I told him dad isn't allowed to make mechas anymore, and you help build cities now! Like this one!"

Guwei wasn't quite a city yet, but since that was something she was working on, Kuvira decided not to correct her.

Amika went on. "When I become the Avatar, I'm going to build the biggest city ever!" She began bouncing with excitement as her vision took shape. "It will have aaaall the elements! It's going to be on a volcano that floats on spirit vines over the sea!"

Baatar chuckled. "That's not how the Avatar cycle works, sweetheart. Or spirit vines."

Kuvira began to tune him out as Baatar went on to explain the physics of spirit vines to their daughter. The abstract physics concepts of his work often went over her head; she worked better with other kinds of numbers, the ones that took better shape in her head. Back then it had been armies, now it was just a lot of statistics. She closed her eyes and allowed their chatter to wash over her. Amika's hands finally slipped free of the bandages and she scurried over to her father.

"Want to help braid mama's hair?"

"Yes!"

As two pairs of hands began working on her hair, grounding her, Kuvira closed her eyes and slipped into a light meditative trance. She was all right. They were all right. And Korra's visit was going to go just fine.


	3. we keep living anyway

Broaching the subject while they were both in bed probably isn't going to be her best decision. If anyone ever asks—though they'd know better than to do so—Kuvira is going to blame exhaustion and painkillers. But the words from Aarif's report are swimming in front of her eyes, and every breath still drags up the choking taste of ash in her mouth. At least she can breathe without pain now, though the carefully dressed burn on her arm still throbs despite the medication.

"We need a plan, should I ever be killed."

"What?" Baatar turns so fast she swears she can hear his neck crick. She winces in sympathy, and at the giant ink scar he'd scratched across his careful schematic of an ore refinery in his alarm.

"It's only reasonable, Baatar." Kuvira caps her pen and closes the cover on her earmarked report. She sets them aside on the collapsible chair she has commandeered as a second bedside table, seeing as the built-in shelf next to the bed is already overflowing with papers and reports. At some point, probably soon, she'll have to find the time to move them to another location before they fall on her in her sleep. "After today's close call, I realised I should have done this sooner."

Baatar rubs his neck, scowling down at his marred diagram. "Well, as second-in-command—" he begins, in a matter-of-fact tone that she can tell is very much _not_matter-of-fact.

Kuvira inhales deeply, then flinches as something grates inside her. "No."

"What do you mean, _no_?" The roll of paper and his pen slide off his lap as he throws his hands up in the air.

She resists the urge to put her head in her hands. Displaying exasperation isn't going to make things any better. It's a sign of weakness, if anything. And Baatar can recognize them better than most. Spirits, is it frustrating to work around his ego. Especially when he can generally be rather reasonable—with her anyway—about his work. Sometimes she wonders if this knee-jerk defensiveness about his abilities is some kind of complex he's developed from working under his father for so long.

"With all due respect, Baatar, and I really mean it," And she does, with every fibre of her being, when he's not being a complete ox-ass. "Everything you have done during campaign so far, your work on the mechas and the train, your help with the rebuilding—"

Baatar crosses his arms. His brows caterpillar together over his glasses as he scowls. "Get to the point, Kuvira."

He is right. She's rambling, and that's not something she's prone to doing. Bringing this up with Baatar has been a mistake. But the subject has to be broached, and she doesn't trust herself to address it in the morning, after she sleeps away the shock and wakes up, alive and breathing, ready to fight another day. It's getting easier to forget now, the losses and the pain. After all, what use is it to linger? Grief and pain only serve to hinder her efficiency, but no matter what others may think, she's not yet so arrogant as to believe that the responsibilities of the empire can rest on her alone. So she goes on. "You lack the skill, experience, and quite frankly the interest for leadership."

It's her honest opinion, not meant as an insult. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, everyone has their place in the machinery of the state. But of course Baatar can't see it that way, has to take it all personally. "Is that what you think?" he asks, pushing off his side of the blanket and rising to his knees. "That I'm content to remain in the shadows? That's why I left Zaofu in the first place, because I was never allowed to lead."

"Don't twist my words, Baatar!" Kuvira snaps. Irritation nags at her like an itch and she digs her fingers into her thighs to resist the urge to warp metal. This is Baatar's dirtiest weapon against her; that she's behaving like his mother, stifling his creativity, restricting his output. This is the accusation he brings up when he _wants _a fight. It's the bit of him that's Suyin rearing its ugly head: stubborn, hypocritical, self-obsessed. Turning him against her when she'd been the one to set him free. It wasn't as though he'd had the backbone to leave on his own.

Irritation turns to anger and sudden burst of adrenaline rushes through her. "This is nothing like leading an engineering project," Kuvira shouts, "_Nothing_! Negotiating terms, military strategy, distributing resources, sending our people into battle _to die_!" She throws back her blanket and climbs out of bed. It feels ridiculous to keep sitting in it anyway, pretending like it's a perfectly normal night. And she appreciates the height and authority standing gives her, especially when Baatar's being an irrational idiot.

"Can you do that? Can you, Baatar?" She pushes on, hands unconsciously curling into fists. "Can you fight next to our people, can you _die _next to our people?"

"You know damn well I can fight!" Baatar snarls, and now he's on his feet too, his discarded diagram crunching under his feet. "But if I'm not good enough for you, then who?" He throws his hands up in the air. "Bolin? I know you've been looking to promote him."

Kuvira snorts. Any satisfaction at his concession is marred by the deliberately ridiculous suggestion. Bolin's a good kid, but no leadership material. And he doesn't deserve to be dragged into this argument. She's not going to play Baatar's stupid game. "No, he's too young, too naive. I'm thinking someone along the lines of Sergeant Liu."

"Sergeant Liu." Baatar's eyes bug. "That ancient—"

So maybe she _is _being a little petty, but she does have the prerogative. And Liu, for all his old-fashioned beliefs and habits, is an effective leader. "This is not the time to let your ridiculous grudge get in the way, Baatar."

"My what?" An angry flush has started crawling up his neck. He crosses his arms. "My ridiculous _grudge_?"

"Yes." She stabs a finger at him. "Sergeant Liu has proven to be an excellent tactician, he is brave, charismatic and the troops love him."

However much he resembles his father, the disdainful look that crosses Baatar's face is entirely Beifong. "His reticence to use technology to our advantage will not help our cause." He sweeps his hand at the various diagrams and plans that litter his side of the bed and the floor. "Your goal is to modernise the Earth Empire as we unite all the states. How will putting a technophobe at the head of the army help with that cause?"

"Fine, do you have any suggestions?" Kuvira starts pacing. Anger and adrenaline demand that she move, even if the narrow strip of space between the foot of the bed and the wall of their cabin is barely a few paces long.

"Captain Aarif—"

"He's half Water Tribe. The people would never accept him as their leader." This kingdom, this _empire_, is still too new. Captain Aarif is a good man and a loyal soldier, but the people need familiarity. The stability of earth.

"What about Sergeant Li?"

"After today?" When bandits had somehow broken past his guard and blown up a refinery, killing two of her troops, as well as three civilians, and wounding eight others including herself. Her mouth tastes of ash again and her anger is momentarily clouded by the scent-memory of burnt flesh. "No way." The only thing she can see in Sergeant Li's future after an inquiry is a discharge, if not a stint at one of the reeducation camps. He's lucky she hadn't dropped him on the tracks.

"Arrgh," Baatar groans at the ceiling as her runs his hands through his hair. Without pomade to slick it back, it spreads out limply over the top of his head like a dead spider-rat, a thoroughly unattractive look. "Fine! Varrick!"

"Dammit Baatar!" snaps Kuvira, and slams her fist into the side of the cabin. It leaves a sizeable dent that she'll have to fix later. She's tired of this stupid argument, and maybe it's her fault for bringing it up, for letting it devolve into this petty disagreement. "Take this seriously!"

"I am taking this seriously!" he roars. For just a second, Kuvira's frightened by his vehemence. He's never taken this tone of voice with her before, and after the day she's had, it puts her on edge. It takes her several moments to realize she has unconsciously slipped into a defensive position, the disassembled components of her pen and Baatar's hovering around her hands like metal insects.

"Shit," Baatar mutters. His eyes flick back and forth between her face, the pieces of metal and the door. She wonders if he thinks she's going to use them against him, if he's considering making a break for it. For a brief second, she does have the tempting idea of clapping a piece of metal over his mouth and shutting him up for the night. The thought immediately fills her with shame and disgust, and she releases her control over the metal pieces. They fall to the floor with little _pings_.

"I'm sorry," she says, the exact moment the same words blurt from his mouth. "I—"

She pauses and gestures at him. "Go ahead."

Baatar shakes his head. "You first."

"Of for the love of—" She rolls her eyes in irritation. "Say what you have to say."

"Fine!" he snaps. Then his anger seems to evaporate entirely. Like a brief drizzle in the Si Wong desert, like it's never been. "Just don't die," he says. His voice cracks on the last word and he slides his hand under his glasses to cover his eyes. She hopes he's not crying, hopes that he just can't stand to look at her. "Don't die. We need you. _I _need you."

The feeling those words invoke in Kuvira is a familiar one. It's that moment of freefall in a dance, when she fails to grab onto the rope, and her only option is to land as well as she can on the firm padding below. Helpless. Su swinging past gracefully above her, a rueful smile on her face.

She pushes away the feeling. It's already bad enough that Baatar's falling to pieces; her leaking emotions all over the place isn't going to make anything any better. "Please tell me you don't actually mean that," she says flatly.

Baatar inhales deeply and removes his hand. He's thankfully dry-eyed, though he looks as pathetic as a kicked fire ferret. "I don't expect any promises," he says. "I know we don't have the luxury. But I just want you to know that I'm scared—"

"And you think I'm not?" she interrupts him angrily. His sudden shift towards sadness is frustrating when a part of her still wants to rage. Besides, his moping is ridiculous considering _she'd_ been the one almost killed today. "Screw you, Baatar. Do you think you're the only one who's scared? I've almost died many times over the past year, some you _don't _even know about!"

"I—"

She cuts him off. "No. You listen to me! You have no right to demand this of me. This _thing _that we're doing, uniting the Earth Kingdom, helping our people, building a stable, sustainable empire—it demands sacrifice. From all of us. And you know I would never ask anything of my people that I'm not willing to do myself."

"Yes, yes, I know," Baatar says heatedly. "You'd throw yourself on the tracks if it served the empire. Which it wouldn't. You dying serves no one. And as you've so astutely pointed out," his tone turns dry, "I'm hardly leadership material. So what good will it do anyone if you're dead?"

Kuvira closes her eyes. They're arguing in circles. Why had she brought this up again? The chain-of-command. Their lack of it. And now they're back to her dying because it seems she hasn't been reminded of her mortality enough today.

What little is left of her anger drains out of her, leaving her tired and shivery. Breathing too deeply has started to hurt again, which means the painkillers are wearing off. She sits down heavily at the edge of her bed and puts her head in hands, refusing to look up even when Baatar nears and sits down next to her. She doesn't want to open her eyes and see the look on his face.

She feels his hand on her leg. His thumb rubs small concentric circles that dip into her inner thigh. "I love you," he says, and his other hand pushes the hair away from her face so that he can press his warm, dry lips to the skin beneath her ear. Day-old stubble brushes her hand as he turns away. Then he gets up and walks out of the room.

Inhaling deeply, Kuvira falls back against the mattress. It makes her ribs twinge, but the pain's a good distraction against the tears that prickle the corners of her eyes. It's ridiculous. Sometimes it feels like she's the only one of the two of them who can see sense. For all Baatar's scientific reason, beyond the realm of mathematics and physics, he's as over-emotional and irrational as everyone else.

Kuvira taps her heel against the floor. Lightly, just enough and just in time to feel a door slide shut. She pinpoints the reverberations to Baatar's old cabin—looks like he's decided not to sleep here tonight. Now that they've made their relationship official and there's no more need for sneaking around, he uses it more as office and a workshop, but it still has a bunk and all the amenities. That's where she goes looking for him sometimes, when he doesn't show up to bed.

Seeing that she's sleeping alone tonight, she might as well make full use of having the bed all to herself. Yet Kuvira finds herself rooted in place. It's the adrenaline crash, she thinks, on top of the crazy day she's had. Exhaustion weighs down her limbs. Turning off the light, even though it would only require moving the metal components in the switch, feels like too much work, so she keeps her arms draped over her face. Her feet still hang off the bed. Despite the chill of the floor radiating through her bare feet, the faint hum of the engine is soothing.

She dozes off then, or something like it. Thoughts keep churning in her head, ideas, strategies, but they feel like they're being formulated by someone else, like she's half-listening to a lecture. Varrick disturbingly features in a number of them, always trailed by an efficient, stone-faced Zhu Li. Baatar is there too, floating in and out of these scenarios. Sometimes Suyin appears, looking on with disappointment.

Kuvira's partway through a treaty with Raiko and Suyin—who in a horrifying twist has stolen the Avatar's body and put her own head on it—when the bed shifts beneath her. She sits up, instantly alert, and narrowly avoids smashing her head into—

"Baatar!"

"Hey," he says quietly. It's hard to see him in the dark; he must have turned off the lights coming in. The stabbing pain in her chest from her sudden movement drags her further into wakefulness and she squints up at him.

"I thought you went back to your own cabin," she mumbles.

"I did," Baatar says, and despite the dark she catches a hint of his rueful smile. "But I missed you."

Kuvira groans. "You know it's annoying when you're mushy and sentimental."

"That's why I do it," Baatar says, and she lets him push her hair away from her face and kiss her.

Their reconciliation is a relief, and the intimacy is comforting. She hates that she has become so needy for his affection of late, but she puts it down to the stresses of her position. If she wasn't feeling half dead with exhaustion, she'd try to push the kiss into something more, something that would help her feel human again. Baatar must notice, because he pulls back and cups her face with his hands, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks. "You should sleep."

"Was sleeping," she grumbles, turning so that she can climb properly into bed. "You woke me."

"You were muttering in your sleep," he says, moving over to his side of the bed. She hears the shuffle of papers as he puts away his diagrams and drawings. "Nightmare?"

Kuvira tries to remember the dream and fails. "I guess," she says. She lies back, and unexpectedly finds herself subject to Baatar in full nursemaid mode. Plumping her pillows, giving her his second one for her ribs and offering her a glass of water he seems to have pulled out of nowhere.

"Stop it," she finally groans as he tries to tuck her blanket in around her. "I'm not a child, just get in."

There's a hint of a smug smile on Baatar's face as he slides in next to her, and she smacks him on his arm for it.

"What was that for?" he whines.

"Being a stubborn ox-ass." She wriggles over to him, using the extra pillow to prop up her back. Conveniently, her injury has corresponded to their respective sides of the bed, which means she can rest her head on his shoulder, though it requires some shifting on his part.

Baatar lets himself be maneuvered, though he gasps and squirms when she slides her feet between his calves. "Your feet are cold."

"Then warm them up."

He snorts, and turns so that he can press a kiss to her cheek. He misses.

"That was my eye." She leans over slightly so that she can kiss him back and scores the corner of his mouth.

"You know I can't see anything without my glasses."

"I know," she murmurs, sliding her hand down the side of his face. "You have no idea how it drives me crazy, it's such an easy way to incapacitate you."

Baatar lets out a gusty sigh. "Well, good thing then that I'm an engineer, and not a soldier."

"Death doesn't discriminate," Kuvira says quietly. She slides a hand under his shirt, tracing a raised scar in his side. There's a matching one in his back, where the rebar had gone through and through. Several inches of steel; the closest she's ever come to ending her campaign. Baatar doesn't know. It's not something she'll ever allow to happen again.

"Yeah," says Baatar. "I've...I've made a list. Of people." He drapes his arm over her waist and she feels his warm, work-roughed hand splay against the small of her back. "We can go over it in the morning. Once you've rested."

She presses a kiss to his shoulder. "Thank you."

"And Kuvira?" He pulls her a little closer, but gently enough as to not hurt her ribs.

"Mmmm."

"I just want you to know…" He sighs again, sending her hair fluttering across her face. "I don't ever want to lose you. I'm not asking for any promises. But I just want you to know that."

The dark is a relief, hiding the tears that make it past her closed eyes. "I love you too," she says, glad her voice doesn't break on the word. "To the ends of the empire, or something sappy like that. And I don't know what I'd do without you. That work for you?"

Baatar's low chuckle reverberates through them both. He's so warm. "Hmmm," he says, as she starts to drift off, "as long as I come second, that'll do."


	4. A Girl from Ba Sing Se

"Baatar. You can't let them see me, Baatar."

The street was empty and there was no one in sight, but Kuvira still said the words like she was afraid someone was about to pop out from a doorway or behind a cart at any moment. It was hard to walk with her stepping on his heels every minute or so, and Baatar was pretty sure he was going to find bruises from her fingers on his arms the next day.

"Why not?" He tried to twist free, tired of being marched around like a human shield and after several tries, succeeded. Looked like that self defense practice with the troops was finally paying off. Even drunk, Kuvira had a grip as strong as iron.

"Look at me!" She stopped short and gestured at herself. "It'll be bad for morale."

Baatar rolled his eyes. "They won't even know it's you."

Kuvira huffed. "I hope so." It did look like she'd gone out of her way to be unrecognized. Gone was the severe bun she'd started putting her hair up in. It was back in the braid she kept in Zaofu, though he wasn't sure if the hair that kept falling over her eyes was meant to be a part of the style or a way to hide her beauty mark. The makeup around her eyes was smudged, probably intentional too. She wasn't even wearing green, and the yellow blouse and long, pleated skirt were a far cry from the uniform she wore daily. She could've passed for any girl from Ba Sing Se.

"You look nice," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Kuvira shrugged expansively, swaying a little into him as she started walking again. "I needed to blend in. Not be me. Zhu Li picked out the clothes."

"Well, she made a good choice," he said, then gasped as she jogged him hard with her elbow.

"Don't get used to it. They're just a disguise."

He massaged his ribs as he made a face. "You're mean when you're drunk."

"I've been told I'm mean when I'm sober too. So with one's true?"

"Both?" Baatar ventured tentatively, unsure if there was a right answer. He flinched when she swayed into him again, but this time it turned out she just want to link her arm with his.

"It's not my fault," she complained, leaning her head against his arm. "I have resting mean face."

Baatar frowned, thinking hard. It wasn't like Kuvira smiled a lot—and over the past few months there'd been little to smile about anyway—but mean wasn't what he thought about, looking at her. But he also had to admit he was incredibly biased in that regard. Now Aunt Lin, _she _had a resting mean face. Baatar wasn't sure he'd ever seen her smile.

"Well, do you want to smile more?" he asked carefully. It felt like he was wading into dangerous territory here.

"No," she said shortly.

"Then don't," he answered.

She sighed deeply. And maybe it didn't mean anything, the sigh, because she said nothing after that, but he couldn't help but feel like his answer had let her down somehow. Or maybe it was all just the alcohol.

They turned a corner and found themselves in a square. There were a few people still awake here, drunks, or maybe just delinquent teens, it was hard to tell, hanging out by the dry fountain as they passed a bottle back and forth. They looked up as the two of them passed, but otherwise remained silent. Nothing to see here, Baatar thought, putting an arm around Kuvira's shoulders. Just two people walking around at night.

"You're tense," Kuvira remarked, as they turned away from the square. "Expecting trouble?"

Baatar shrugged, but he left his arm where it was. If she had a problem with it, he'd know. "Not really," he admitted. "But better to be safe, especially with you like this. Ow!"

"I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of defending myself," Kuvira said flatly. She held her elbow at his ribs the way she'd hold a blade.

"I wasn't worried about you, I was worried about them. Remember the last time you metal bent while drunk?"

"I was sixteen!" she said, her tone wounded. Her elbow dug in again, but this time he was quicker. Intercepting her with his hand, he slipped his arm off her shoulder and pushed her away to the other side of the street. She gave an exaggerated gasp, pretending to stumble and fetch up against the wall, but Baatar wasn't fooled.

"You walk there." He pointed to the ground beneath him. "I walk here."

Kuvira's hair had fallen into her face again, but it couldn't hide the dangerous glint in her eyes, or the smirk that curled her mouth. Baatar had just enough time to curse before the pavement rolled over his shoes, trapping his feet and legs up to the knee. Then the entire block he was standing on shifted over, moving through the ground like it was water. He wobbled, and the stone around his legs crept up his thighs to steady him.

Then it came to a stop. "Hey," he said, and gave her a little wave, because there really wasn't anything else he could do. Kuvira must have sunk the earth he was trapped in into the ground a little, since he now found himself eye to eye with her.

"Say that again about my metalbending." Her voice was flat, but they were close enough that he could see the corner of her mouth twitching.

"That's not metalbending," he said, giving her a smirk of his own. "That's earthbending. Besides," he looked behind him at the broken pavement slabs and the churned up dirt beneath, "You're breaking your own rules."

As she continued to fake a scowl at him, he held out his palm. "That's a hundred ban fine for the destruction of public property."

The ground beneath him shot up, and the rock around his legs crumbled away, all so suddenly that he stumbled. Kuvira caught him by his elbows. "You're lucky I like you."

"You mean you're lucky _I _like _you_," Baatar said, dusting himself off as she went about repairing the road. Broken chunks of paving stone trailed after her in a weird parody of turtle ducklings chasing after their mother. "If anyone else had asked me to pick them up after a night of drunken revelry—"

Kuvira snorted. A pulling gesture with her fist made the chunk of earth he'd been standing on slide back into place. Then with the same sharp, efficient motions she used with her metal bands, she put the broken chunks of paving back. Baatar assisted in his own nonbender way, kicking stray pieces of rock in her direction for her to manipulate. Finally, she smoothed it all down, sliding her slippered foot over the previously broken bit of road. "There," she declared, hands on hips. "Good as new."

"Fantastic," Baatar said drily. "Now before you tear up the rest of the city, can we go?"

"Fine." She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him along, and Baatar, completely nonplussed, allowed himself to be led. The affection was unusual, though maybe in Kuvira's mind, it was simply a matter of efficiency. That is, if she knew where they were going. The roads and alleyways were unfamiliar to him, though the flag that marked their headquarters remained in sight, rising above Ba Sing Se's green tiled roofs, so at least they were still heading in the right direction.

Kuvira wasn't even walking properly, instead moving along in half-skips that involved kicking her legs out, performing little hops and stomps that seemed to shift her weight from her heels to her toes, all the while humming a rhythmic song under her breath.

And because she still held Baatar's hand, it made for somewhat uncomfortable walking, since he'd find himself jerked along for a bit as she moved away, only to fetch up against her back as she stopped to do some confusing, on-the-spot footwork that he could only half make-out due to the length and volume of her skirt.

"Were you out dancing?" he asked, as she some did some kind of half-twirl that brought her an arms length away, before reeling herself back in.

"Me? No."

"Then what's with the—" he tried to execute a little jig to demonstrate, only to trip over his own feet and stumble.

A laugh escaped Kuvira, but she quickly recovered, covering her mouth and disguising it as some heavy coughing.

"That was terrible," she remarked, when she was done making fun of him.

"My feet are bigger than yours," he said defensively, but she just scoffed.

"That's no excuse. You just think the only way to move is to go forwards, one foot in front of the other."

"Well, that's how walking works."

"But we're not talking about _walking_." She linked her arm through his, and started doing that half-skip again, swinging her right foot out, then back in, stomping, then switching to her left foot foot and repeating the whole thing. "Come on, follow me."

Baatar insistently put one foot in front the other, moving like nature intended him to. "No thanks. Besides, shouldn't we—"

"Shut up," she said, hip-checking him hard enough that his teeth clacked together. "Dance with me."

"Fine," he sighed. "One...whatever this is. Then we have to get back. You have a meeting with Governor Khan tomorrow."

"I'll be fine," she said, and started humming that song again. "Follow me."

The steps, Baatar reflected as he dance, swinging out his legs to follow hers, weren't all that complicated. And the rhythm, for now, was fairly consistent. Out, in, stomp, switch, out, in, stomp. But somehow he still messed up, swinging out instead of in, stomping at the wrong time, wobbling dangerously as he switched from one foot to the other.

"You're overthinking it," said Kuvira. "Just move." At some point she'd slung his arm over her shoulders and put her own arm around his waist to steady him. She was a line of heat against his side, breathing evenly and steadily while his own lungs had started burning with exertion. The simplicity of the dance was deceiving. This was as much a workout as running several miles.

"Come on," Kuvira chided, "the basics are easy." She did some kind of sideways leap that shifted her whole weight against him, drawing her feet up under her. He instinctively clamped his hand down on her shoulder, and for a moment that and her arm around his waist were the only things that kept her up in the air. Her breath was hot in his ear, and he swallowed hard as she spoke. "If you can't keep up, I should probably fire you."

She dropped back to her feet and spun away, releasing her hold on him. Baatar let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "I'd like to see you explain that to the troops. 'He couldn't dance properly. So I fired him.'"

Kuvira did another skip, another twirl, and from there flowed into movement he recognized from her fighting style. "Every good warrior knows how to dance," she said, sounding like she was paraphrasing someone else's words. His mother's, perhaps? The kata she executed looked flawless to his untrained eyes, but now he recognized the elements of dance in it, the way her balance shifted easily from one foot to another, how her arms moved with fluid yet decisive grace.

It made him regret, for a moment, never having taken up his mother's offer to teach him martial arts when he was younger. After all, she'd worked with benders and nonbenders alike, she would probably have known what to do with him. He wondered briefly what it would be like to fight next Kuvira, if their bodies were in tune as their minds or ambitions.

"A ban for your thoughts."

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Thinking of could've beens."

Kuvira gave him a shrewd look. "Those are dangerous."

"I know." She'd stopped dancing, so he reached out and took her hand. "You still haven't told me where you went."

"Oh," she gave an off-handed shrug. "It was a cultural showcase. I happened to see a poster about it somewhere."

Baatar frowned, trying to remember if he'd seen anything like that over the past days. At the city hall? A police station? A restaurant? "I didn't know they had these kinds of things here."

"It's a large city, Baatar," said Kuvira, an undercurrent of impatience in her voice. "People here come from all over. This dance happens to be from the southeastern part of the Earth Kingdom, near the southern Air Nation islands."

"And they've brought it all the way to Ba Sing Se?" He tried to recall if he'd seen anything similar in Zaofu. "Nice."

"That's what I want, Baatar," said Kuvira. "Our nation, united. So that everyone can see what we have to offer, all of us, from every corner of the Earth Empire, not just powerful states like Zaofu and Ba Sing Se and Gaoling."

Her spine straightened as she spoke, her gait changed. Soon they were going to reach the compound that housed the officers from their army, including themselves. But for now, she still held his hand. He squeezed her fingers. "It will happen, Kuvira."

She didn't say anything, but she squeezed back too.

When they were a block away, Kuvira ducked into an alley, dragging him along. They'd pulled back the guard over the past few weeks, reducing posts to the entrances of buildings. Kuvira believed the city had calmed down enough for that to serve as a sign of confidence and trust, and judging from the peaceful streets tonight, she'd been right. Baatar watched in surprise as she stripped off her blouse and skirt. Less surprising was the undershirt and military trousers she'd kept on underneath.

"You were really going the whole way with this disguise weren't you?" he remarked, as Kuvira licked her thumb and started rubbing away the black on her eyelids.

"I'm just a girl from Ba Sing Se, out to have some fun." The tone of her voice was sing-song, but sober. Baatar suspected she'd been sober since before she'd started dancing.

"But did _you_?"

"Did I what?"

"Actually have fun? You as..." he gestured at her, "yourself."

She gave him a small smile. "Yes. It was nice, to get away for a bit. Be someone else for a while." She kept rubbing away at her makeup, but with only her thumb it was just getting worse.

"Here, let me," offered Baatar, pulling out a handkerchief that was thankfully free from oil stains and anything else. Instead of taking it from him, Kuvira tilted her face towards him, offering. He hesitated, and she flushed suddenly, turning away and snatching the handkerchief from him.

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," he said lamely, as she wetted the cloth between her lips and brought it to her eye, still turned away from him. He wondered if it was his cue to leave. His escort mission seemed completed, she didn't need him anymore.

"I haven't been a stranger in a while." Her voice was low when she spoke. The one eye he could see was now free from makeup. "It's nice to be among people who don't recognize you, who don't have any expectations.

"And don't get me wrong." She looked up, and the Kuvira who looked at him with determined green eyes was the one he'd gotten to know over the past six months of their campaign. "I don't fear those expectations. They're necessary. But—"

"It's nice to not feel them for a while," he finished for her.

She gave him back his handkerchief, nodding. "Thank you for walking me back. And sorry if I was being...silly."

"Well, it least it's just me," he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and not some kind of grimace.

"Oh Baatar." She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I don't know if I've ever told you how much I appreciate you being here."

"It's…" he shrugged. "We have a plan. A goal. And we'll see it through."

"Yes." For a moment she swayed forward, but then seemed to think better of it. Stepping back, she removed her hand and bundled her clothes under her arm.

"I'll see you in the morning then, at the drills."

Baatar made a face. That would mean about four hours of sleep.

Kuvira caught the look, and glared. "You'd better be there."

Clicking his heels together, he gave her a snappy salute. "Yes, ma'am."

She sniffed and turned on her heel. "Goodnight!" he called after her, and she responded with short wave.

Baatar watched her go. His room was in another building; at Kuvira's insistence they'd been housed separately to ensure the safety of the chain of command in case of an attack. He wondered what the guard at her building thought when they saw her. Maybe they'd assume she'd been out on a run, or at a top secret meeting. He wondered what excuse to give to his own guard.

"I've been out dancing with a stranger," he murmured to himself. "Just some girl from Ba Sing Se." Then he had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. What a strange, strange night. Heading to his building, he absently attempted a step from the dance. Swing in, swing out, stomp, switch. This time he managed without tripping.


End file.
